Pat Robertson used to routinely discuss the impending return of Christ (the Apocalypse, the End of Days, etc.), AND give investment tips for a financially sound retirement in the same episode of “The 700 Club.”

Pat Robertson used to routinely discuss the impending return of Christ (the Apocalypse, the End of Days, etc.), AND give investment tips for a financially sound retirement in the same episode of “The 700 Club.”

I wonder how many fundamentalists are spending their kids college funds since they won’t need them. The Chinese probably aren’t pleased. They just lent us a trillion dollars at what, 18 percent?

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“The simple fables of the religious of the world have come to seem like tales told to children.” - Nobel Prize recipient - Francis Crick

“It is time we recognized the boundless narcissism and self-deceit of the saved.” - Sam Harris

I had trouble connecting the Bertrand Russell essay with tree-planting…what did I miss?

This:

Defects In Christ’s Teaching

Having granted the excellence of these maxims, I come to certain points in which I do not believe that one can grant either the superlative wisdom or the superlative goodness of Christ as depicted in the Gospels; and here I may say that one is not concerned with the historical question. Historically, it is quite doubtful whether Christ ever existed at all, and if He did we do not know anything about Him, so that I am not concerned with the historical question, which is a very difficult one. I am concerned with Christ as He appears in the Gospels, taking the Gospel narrative as it stands, and there one does find some things that do not seem to be very wise. For one thing, he certainly thought his second coming would occur in clouds of glory before the death of all the people who were living at that time. There are a great many texts that prove that. He says, for instance: “Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel till the Son of Man be come.” Then He says: “There are some standing here which shall not taste death till the Son of Man comes into His kingdom”; and there are a lot of places where it is quite clear that He believed His second coming would happen during the lifetime of many then living. That was the belief of his earlier followers, and it was the basis of a good deal of His moral teaching. When He said, “Take no thought for the morrow,” and things of that sort, it was very largely because He thought the second coming was going to be very soon, and that all ordinary mundane affairs did not count. I have, as a matter of fact, known some Christians who did believe the second coming was imminent. I knew a parson who frightened his congregation terribly by telling them that the second coming was very imminent indeed, but they were much consoled when they found that he was planting trees in his garden. The early Christians really did believe it, and they did abstain from such things as planting trees in their gardens, because they did accept from Christ the belief that the second coming was imminent. In this respect clearly He was not so wise as some other people have been, and he certainly was not superlatively wise.

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“I am one of the few people I know who has argued in print that torture may be an ethical necessity in our war on terror.” Sam Harris October 17, 2005

“The early Christians really did believe it, and they did abstain from such things as planting trees in their gardens, because they did accept from Christ the belief that the second coming was imminent.”

Yet, it didn’t stop them from having sex and making babies. Nature works in mysterious ways.

“The early Christians really did believe it, and they did abstain from such things as planting trees in their gardens, because they did accept from Christ the belief that the second coming was imminent.”

Yet, it didn’t stop them from having sex and making babies. Nature works in mysterious ways.

And the Chinese are much relieved since it is those babies who are going to be paying the interest on the trillion dollars they’ve lent us. Is there a mathematician in the house who can tell us what the annual interest is on a trillion dollar loan? Would they settle for Texas?

Signature

“The simple fables of the religious of the world have come to seem like tales told to children.” - Nobel Prize recipient - Francis Crick

“It is time we recognized the boundless narcissism and self-deceit of the saved.” - Sam Harris